Jealous Woman by James M. Cain Page B

companies.”
    “But—there is no insurance.”
    “There has to be, if he rang you.”
    “There was, but the policies lapsed.”
    “Do you still have them?”
    “They’re in Kennebunkport.”
    “Maine?”
    “My family was there when I came back from Bermuda. We have a summer place there. It had been years since I had banking connections in New York, so I put them in a safe deposit box there. Then we came back on Labor Day and I couldn’t get them, or my other stuff that was with them. It didn’t seem to make much difference, as we expected to be back in the fall, for skiing. But various things came up. And then there began this wrangle with Dick, by mail, over the policies. He wanted to change the beneficiary, to this woman, I suppose, but to do it he had to have the policies. But I simply was not going to take a special trip to Maine for some insurance policies to be made out to a woman reeking with money already, and one that I owed not one bit of consideration to, believe me. Then the last letter I got from him said most curtly that he was going to have the policies cancelled. Or let them lapse, I guess that was it.”
    “Did he do it?”
    “Well, did he? I haven’t heard from him since.”
    “He was a fool if he did.”
    “Why?”
    “You got insurance, you’ve got it. You lose it you don’t know where you stand. You’ve got to pass another medical examination, you’ll pay a higher premium, as you’ve got older all the time, and there’s always the risk you can’t pass the examination. He probably kept them up. You’ll cash in—that is, unless—”
    “Unless what?”
    “The suicide clause touches you out.”
    “On that they could refuse to pay?”
    “If it’s still in effect. When were these policies written? Before your marriage with Sperry broke up, I would assume.”
    “There were several. The smaller ones, totaling twenty-eight hundred dollars, I think, were written about five years ago. But the big one, for twenty-five thousand, was taken out a little less than two years ago.”
    “Those clauses generally run for two or three years.”
    “Ed, I suddenly have a horrible suspicion. That’s why she said what she did. Just now, at the inquest. Ed, did it strike you that was a most unlikely tale? Possibly not, as you didn’t know him. Of all things you could believe about him, that would be the last. ... And yet why would she lie about it just to keep me out of money? Is she that vindictive about me?”
    “Taking an awful risk, too.”
    “I would think so. ... What do I do now?”
    “Get the policies.”
    “I can’t.”
    “You’ll have to.”
    “I’ll have to go to Maine in person, and I can’t leave Reno. I’ll lose my residence if I do, and have to begin all over again.”
    “O.K., begin over again, but get them.”
    “But it’ll be six more weeks, and—”
    “And the rest of your life. What do you care?”
    “I hadn’t thought of that.”
    “O.K., think about it.”
    “With you, is that the idea?”
    “Something like that.”
    I went down around twelve, and in the lobby Keyes was waiting for me. I started by, because he’d got under my skin with what he had said, but then I thought oh well, he makes everybody hate him so why act like he knew any better. I wasn’t any too agreeable about it, though, when I asked him what he wanted, and I took my time about it when he asked me to sit down. He took out a fountain pen and held it out for me to look at. “You’d be surprised where that came from.”
    “I never saw it before.”
    “Nor I, Ed. The bartender gave it to me.”
    “He never gave me a gold pen.”
    “To give Mrs. Sperry.”
    “Likes her?”
    “It was turned in. It belongs to Sperry, and as I’d been seen with her quite a lot, they thought I wouldn’t mind seeing that she got it. He had lent it to somebody that wanted to write down the title of one of his books and neglected to give it back before he went upstairs. It seems there was a call that